Chapter Text
Prologue: The Werewolf and the Hybrid
January 1901, New Orleans
Celeste Dubois was an angry woman. If you spoke to any French Quarter witch who had known her, before that fateful day in 1821, when Klaus Mikaelson had drowned her in the bath, they would say as much.
Celeste Dubois might be long dead, but memories of her indiscretions lingered in the minds of the elders. Young witches thrown down the stairs when they engaged in the girlhood teasing prominent with the fairer sex. A number of complaints from the matriarch of the Bennett coven about excessive pride, revealing manners of dress, and wanton cruelty.
All things unseemly for a young woman, unless she had the talent or bloodline to back it up. New Orleans, after all, was not like other cities. The ancestors were all the kept the witches of the city protected from the whims of their Mikaelson rulers.
No, the ancestors did not like Celeste Dubois: the headstrong, impetuous girl from a no name family. But in all their arrogance, they managed to be surprised when she threw in her lot with the Mikaelson family.
But whatever glory or riches the young girl had hoped to find did not come to be. Three months after she first entered Elijah Mikaelson’s bed, she was dead. Drowned by his spiteful brother, and forgotten soon after.
But Celeste was clever, much cleverer than the fool everyone thought she was. She slipped into a new body, a new skin, and plotted her revenge. Nursed the raging fire of hate she had possessed in youth into a blazing inferno, and directed it at one specific target: Klaus Mikaelson.
It had been eighty years, of new bodies and new lives and new facets to her plan, but she was finally ready. Her patience had paid off. The spell she would cast tonight would make Klaus Mikaelson mortal.
Of course, it would only last a night, but that was plenty of time. When he visited the Crescents to renegotiate the infernal treaty of peace, she would intercept him and slit his throat. Even such a simple plan had taken weeks of planning. She had to ensure that Elijah, the one who normally attended such meetings, was out of the city, dealing with a trade embargo she had orchestrated, and she had spent hours in the Bayou, plotting the path he would take.
Celeste grinned as her spell neared completion. In just a few moments, the original hybrid would be fundamentally weakened. As a matter of fact, she bet the changes were already taking place. At last, she would have revenge and prove her superiority over-
She collapsed, her throat cut.
~~
Marcellus Mikaelson retrieved the bloody knife out of the young lady’s neck, wincing as her bloodstained blond hair hit the carpet of the parlor. The townhome she’d been occupying was certainly the last place he’d expect a renegade witch to hide, much less one who’d clearly been using black magic. “And why didn't you use your fangs?” He asked his companion.
Kol Mikaelson rolled his eyes, his hatred of the younger gentlemen abundantly clear. “Why does it not surprise me that the workings of this plan elude you, Marcel? The last thing we need to do is to start a war between the vampires and witches of the city. Surely even your tiny mind can comprehend such a thing.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t lunge at her and rip her throat out the second we got here. Oh wait, you did. Now we know nothing about whatever it was Miss Mercile was planning. Klaus is going to be really happy with you.”
“I violently dislike you.”
“Trust me, the feeling’s mutual.”
The two men made an odd pair, one smug about a murder well achieved, and the other exasperated by his companion’s homicidal tendencies. Both were so distracted by their disdain for the other, however, that they did not notice one crucial thing: the wick of the candle that the witch was using, straightening. It was as if it had forgotten it had been burning at all.
~~
Andrea Labonair was not someone, who by any stretch of the imagination, lacked. Virtually everyone in the city of New Orleans had something to say about the Crescent Pack’s werewolf princess. At 21, the girl had never been seen in public, so rumors abounded.
They said that she was undeniably the most beautiful girl in the city. They said she was hideously deformed, and hidden away on pack lands to spare her father the shame. The Treme Coven had heard that she was an exceptionally powerful werewolf, triggering her curse at the age of five. The Ninth Ward Coven had heard that she wasn’t a werewolf at all, but a girl the Labonairs had found stranded in the woods.
For all the unbelievable - and often - contradictory stories about Andrea Labonair, there was an undercurrent of jealousy. She was the daughter of Lucas Labonair, the alpha of the Crescent Pack, who had killed Richard Dumas for leadership, in one of the largest coups in the city’s history, and his dutiful wife Charlotte. The Labonairs possessed incredible wealth and influence within the city, and it only stood to reason that Andrea grew up with the finest clothing, the finest food, and the finest education there possibly was.
Indeed, Andrea Laboniar had a great many things to be happy about. She had two loving (if stifling) parents, she was a part of the most powerful (most elitist) werewolf pack in the Southern United States, and she was an integral and well respected member of her pack (as much as a woman could be).
Andrea knew, intellectually, the place of privilege she was in. On one of her rare, chaperoned trips into the city, she had seen muddy, children playing on the streets, their clothes ripped and worn. She had met the orphans of her pack - playing with them had always felt like one of the small differences she was really making.
But as sheltered as she was, Andrea was not naive. Though she might have been born a Labonair, one of the sacred werewolf bloodlines, she was still a woman. That fact was made abundantly clear to her every time the men of the pack had one of their council meetings, or every time the girls were herded into separate training areas.
Andrea knew that she could contribute so much to her pack. She loved them, could think of each name and face and recall a lifetime of fond memories. But she had been told, time and time again, that the way she would bring value to her back was through her marriage to Jackson Kenner, the grandson of the war-mongering alpha her father had disposed of.
Andrea had no particularly strong feelings about Jackson as a person. He was an affable enough sort, if a little awkward around her. The men of the pack had good things to say about him - that he was strong and personable and would lead the Crescents into a golden age. Yet she couldn’t help but hate him for what he represented. The second she married him, she would be just Jackson Kenner’s wife, passed down from her father’s custody to her husband’s.
Why could she not be her own person? Why could she not make just one foolish, reckless decision that was entirely hers? She wanted to do something utterly wild, channel her anger about the rigid roadmap her life was following, and do something to get out of this situation she had gotten herself stuck in.
Which is why when Klaus Mikaelson, the vampire she had been warned to stay far away from, came to the packhouse to sign a treaty, she was the one who approached him.
And, well, things spiraled from there.
~~
Lord, Elijah was going to be insufferable if he found out that Klaus had seduced the Labonair princess. Although, in his defense, the young woman hadn’t needed all that much convincing. Clearly, being kept from so much as leaving the pack grounds and suffocated in the name of protecting her virtue had left her desperate for some release.
And release Klaus had been happy to give. It had been easy, fast, and remarkably fun, all things considered. He would have considered offering to do it again sometime, if he wasn’t certain getting found out risked a war on the streets of New Orleans.
After tedious hours of negotiations with Lucas Labonair and Jackson Kenner (he really ought to send Kol to eat them all, or Rebekah to bore them to death with her frivolities) he finally made his way back to the compound. It was a much longer journey than normal - he had felt remarkably sluggish all day, his vampire senses dulled. He could almost feel the frigid January air! He had lost that aspect of his humanity centuries ago.
He reckoned that he had probably slipped some poison at the banquet Elijah and Rebekah had press-ganged him into hosting yesterday. The more potent the concoction, the more likely he was to suffer a few hours of unpleasantness. Though, he had never recalled it lasting this long.
He walked through the doors of the Abattoir, smiling as he heard the tell-tale signs of his youngest (living) brother and son arguing. They had never managed to learn to like each other, but Kol’s homicidal rage had faded after his latest stint in his coffin.
“Will the both of you shut up? Good lord, I’m trying to read it here!” Rebekah's annoyed voice echoed through the compound, right on cue. The entirely insincere apologies followed, as they always did.
By the time he reached his room, it was like a fog set over his mind. Soon, he had trouble recalling the treaty with the Crescents, and anything at all that happened during the day. And so Andrea Labonair slipped from his mind entirely.
But for the next nine months, he would never be far from her thoughts.
September 1901, New Orleans
It was pain. Agonzing, terrible pain that Andrea had never felt before.
“Push! Push, Miss Labonair!”
Even in her blurry haze of pain, it did not escape Andrea the emphasis the pack’s midwife put on miss . For the last seven months, ever since the scent of the newborn inside of her became apparent, she had been shunned. Her own parents scarcely had spoken to her. If she wasn’t the alpha’s daughter, she’d certainly be left to her own devices for the birth.
Her mother had come once with what she had called a peace offering. Wolfsbane tea. Just enough to kill the burgeoning life inside Andrea and let her take the first steps to winning back the pack’s trust after her foolishness, Charlotte Labonair had said.
“Push harder , Miss!”
God, Andrea had wanted to throw the tea in her mother’s face for that. But she had kept quiet and had been obedient these past few months, staying secluded in her rooms like she was told to, burning with shame at what she had done. Not for the life in her, no, that was the only thing that had gotten her through these past few months, but who she had created it with.
“I see the head!”
Her baby’s father was the original hybrid. She scarcely believed that it was possible - after all, vampires couldn’t have children - but it was. Every whisper about the unnatural state of her child, every rumor about the possible father, made her heart start racing.
Andrea smiled faintly at the crying little newborn, almost glowing in the white blankets the nurse wrapped them in. She had done that. For all the shame she had endured, for all the abuse hurtled at her, for all the despair she had felt - this made it worth it.
“Hope,” she whispered. An unorthodox name for the girl who’s very existence was so unorthodox. For the little girl who had been her mother’s hope, her salvation.
“Congratulations. You have a daughter, Miss Labonair.” The midwife wasn’t smiling - how could she not be smiling, when the sweetest girl in all of New Orleans had just come into existence? The woman was silent for a bit, giving her a cold glare, before continuing. “And the father?”
Andrea hesitated.
Her poor little one’s life would be difficult enough, being a bastard. She didn’t want her known as a monster’s daughter. Particularly when she was certain the monster in question would have no interest in the life they created together.
“There is no father.” She said.
~~
May 2009, New Orleans
Rousseau’s had always been a hub for supernatural activity. Of course, being such a thing in a city like New Orleans made it worthy of attention. Unsuspecting humans mingled with daywalkers and witches alike. The odd werewolf or two was there as well, immediately discernible to the young-looking woman who sat at the bar by the copious amounts of leather and flannel they were wearing.
Of course, she didn’t fail to see the way many of the bar’s patrons looked at her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a Deveraux witch lean over to whisper to her companion, her gaze darting towards the woman at the bar and then looking away as soon as the pair made eye contact.
The brown-haired woman smirked, giving the witch a jaunty wave of her fingers. The other woman paled. She meant no harm, of course, but the witches didn’t know that. It was good to keep them on their toes, especially if the rumor about a coming Harvest was true.
“You look a little bit young to be drinking.” A blonde woman - Cami , judging by her nametag - who barely looked old enough to be drinking herself, leaned over the counter.
“Trust me, I’m older than I look.” She stared into the other girl’s eyes, letting the compulsion take hold. “Bourbon, please.”
Cami complied, before leaning over and looking at the other girl quizzically. “I don’t think I’ve seen you here before, and I’ve been working here for nearly a year. Are you a tourist?”
She laughed at that, touching a necklace she wore. “Nope, I’m born and raised in New Orleans. I came back to visit my brother, actually. He likes to say he runs this town.”
“Oh, really? It sounds like your brother thinks highly of himself.”
“He definitely does,” called a voice in the doorway. A handsome, dark skinned man with shaved hair was smiling at the woman, who grinned back. “But he has every reason to.”
“Marcel.” The girl greeted, ignoring the way the witches in the bar winced at the sight of her brother. “I missed you.”
“Hope,” he replied. “We have a lot we need to catch up on. It’s about him .”